Textron Reviews

Pros

I enjoyed working at Textron. Like GE, It is one of the largest conglomerates in the world. In the company, you will find lots of opportunity to grow.

Cons

Because it is a large company, it is harder to manage change. You will need to work extra hard with your peers.

Pros

Textron has some better divisions, but usually gives fair compensation, time off from work and many people don't have to work too hard. Some departments are filled with good people

Cons

Frequent layoffs, lots of hierarchy, aging buildings, some are required to work weekends. Some departments are filled with bad people

Advice to Senior Management

Have more cross functional training, bring in some fresh blood, make employees more excited about the company. Needs some flair.

Pros

Textron provides a lot of varied opportunities through the businesses and locations and especially recently does a good job of identifying high potential employees and putting them in growth opportunities. In additional, the current CEO is putting a lot of focus on velocity, eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy, and engineering/product development.

Cons

Textron is in transition, so there are still a lot of pockets of Old Boys Network and barriers to getting work done. Also, the company is full of manufacturing businesses which are in locations that would definitely not be considered "sexy", like WIchita KS.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep knocking out useless hierarchy and focusing on our core business, but also recognize that while what matters to our customers is most important, if we want to attract new talent, we need to pay attention to what newer generations in the workforce find important as well.

Pros

The medical benefits were very good and there was a retirement plan that was fair. It was a union shop which gave better security, at least while it was still in operation.

Cons

The last few years they quit matching stock options. We went through 5 plant managers in 4 years before the doors closed in 2009. Textron needs to focus more on just the bottom dollar.

Advice to Senior Management

Too many chiefs make for a confusing operation. Promoting within the company makes for better relations.

Pros

The people and employees of Textron are friendly, kind and generally nice to be around. They are understanding if you have a problem and willing to help if they can. It is a very nice place to come to work. The company is very cognizant of work environment and does this well. Mistakes are tolerated and re-mediated.

Cons

- Advancement in technical rates is poor, growth is zero. The performance evaluation procedure is a complete waste of time. The human resources employees are outsourced and do not work for Textron.
- Excessively process oriented, to the point where it is difficult to accomplish daily tasks.
- Middle management is a class on its own, most of them never did any actual work.
- Poor performers are impossible to get rid of.
- Salary is not market competitive for experience.
- Layoffs are handled poorly.
- Two layers of management has become the norm, an 'administrative' and a technical lead. This means dual the meetings and dual the wasted time.

Advice to Senior Management

- Allow employees in danger of layoff to relocate or at least apply for positions elsewhere.
- Eliminate about 3 layers of management.
- Create a balance between technical and financial.
- Localize the purchasing and accounting.
- Train engineers in business accounting and explain how the system works.
- Get rid of bonuses for senior executives, if the company is laying off or raises are frozen.
- Integrate the OU's better. One company / one rule should be the mandate, not just a goal. AAI and Overwatch should not have two different personnel policies.

Pros

Friendly and helpful people. Employees have good works ethics.

Cons

It's pretty far away from the major cities so commute was longer than I would have liked. Buildings were pretty old.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure everyone feels engaged at work.

Pros

Good pay and benefits package. Generally, co workers were helpful and friendly. Telework or work from home was heavily promoted by most supervisors.

Cons

I spent a week at a training class when I first started, which was great, but they spent most of the time performing the administrative tasks (HR stuff) that all new hires need. The time would have been better spent showing me how my predecessor performed my job. There was no room for advancement within my department. I would have had to relocate or move to the internal audit group to be promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

Increase your training program to two weeks and have the new hire spend some time with another employee who already performs the same or a similar function to allow the new hire to get a better idea of the systems, how things are done, and what the job is all about. Assign each new hire a "buddy" to help them get oriented to Textron. This would be especially helpful for remote employees.

Pros

The pay is decent, and the work-life balance is very good. Most people don't work crazy hours, and the vacation policy is very generous.

Cons

It seems like there is little opportunity for advancement. They are trying to improve the number of opportunities available, but the majority of these opportunities are in very rural places close to manufacturing facilities. It seems to be a place where time at the company and blending into the background is rewarded more-so than merit. Can be very conservative.

Pros

Salary, flexibility, hours, people, location

Cons

Rigid office structure, no room for advancement

Pros

Workers dedicated to putting out quality product. Folks generally work together as a team.

Good pay and benefits

Good facilities, especially Slidell administration building

Cons

Management was not proactive enough during salad days to prepare for future. Now they are playing catch-up, struggling to compete with more established competitors for future contracts.

Insufficient and late investment in technical tools to enable employees to do their jobs more efficiently and with less error.

HR is often an impediment to attracting and keeping talent. HR recently mishandled an opportunity to move a key employee to satellite office near the customer.

Some middle-level managers have lousy people skills, or are unqualified to manage much of anything.